[ROM] Unofficial OpenELEC for MK808B+ and MXQ

[borikua]

Nobody has given a report on HD18Q yet. You can try issuing a 'reboot recovery' command in Android with the SD card inserted. Your box should reboot, briefly display Recovery Robot and then (hopefully) reboot to OpenELEC.

Tried it. Nothing happen. I did toothpick method, there was a slight delay and MXQ logo appeared. Then it went to recovery. I was then going to try the install from EXT option but the OK button on the remore would not work.

I left the SD card in, unplugged and plugged back in... the unit started as usual and went into Android.

Will try again with another SD card.


UPDATE:

Tried another SD card. Basically same result. Just went into recovery. I did realize that instead of using the OK on the remote, I use the "return" button and it goes to folder. So I went to update from EXT, there was no file to choose. (i do know there are 2 files in SD card). Went back and simply did reboot from menu option with SD card still inserted. It just booted as usual to android.

Sorry, maybe I am doing wrong but that is how I was able to test and those are my results.

[Shadi86]

Guys is it matter if I have the transmart version of mk808+ , I have the regular mk808+ not transmart, how good it's work with openelec?

[rev6]

Guys is it matter if I have the transmart version of mk808+ , I have the regular mk808+ not transmart, how good it's work with openelec?

Try it out Worse that can happen is you won't have WiFi and Bluetooth.

[Wendigo]

When I've had problems booting to recovery I've found that removing the SD card and booting to the internal recovery works. Then you can insert your SD card and point the updater to your new image.

I think I already tried that and it didn't work for me. I will try it again when I'm back at home, just to be sure.

In the end, after some time playing around with the Android ROM I decided to get rid of it. I have installed the p8 to the NAND using the Updater app and then updated to the p16. So far working great.

Only two issues:

- I can't poweroff the device. Both the poweroff button and the poweroff option in Kodi menu seem to only suspend the box, not shuting down it completely. I don't know if this is a bug or a feature. Anyway, I would like to know if there is a way to shut it down.

- Status LED is always red.

I haven't tested the Wifi (I use ethernet), but everything else is working flawlessly. A great improvement from my old GBox Midnight.

Great work!

[kszaq]

Hello kszaq ,
Im using the p15 openelec version on mk808b+ and when im watching live tv stream im getting audio noise on sport tv 1 (portuguese channel) and its running on Standart quality. All the others channels audio are working fine. I uploaded 2 short videos on youtube so you could see the difference.

Mk808b+ sound noise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTPxbcqfAW0

Pc clear sound (same stream):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKhdlyQs_io

Here is my log -> http://xbmclogs.com/ptmtt1b8y

If you can fix this cool, if you cant thanks anyway

Other issues that i spotted:
- Mouse lags wheel/scroll works only when pressed and right click lags alot. Im using mitsai r500 wireless mouse.
- Acestream is not working
- These past 2 days it was booting straight to the videos menu. Today is booting again to the main menu (i know its not stable).
- Kore and yatse are working but very slow when navigating the menus. Does anyone has this problem?

miguelf Try playing that stream with 5.0.8p8. In p15 and p16 there are some patches lacking that may affect you experience. I re-added them for the next release. You should also turn on debugging in settings because now I can't see anything unusual in your log.

While the workaround works fine, will the normal toothpick + recovery.img method be available?

Can we open local console with crtl+alt+f3 ? On OE i386 I'd add 'debugging' to kernel boot line to enable local console.

kkm The normal toothpick method works for me. Try pushing the button right after you power on the box. There will be a new bootloader in next release which will show the first logo right after boot.

Dear kszaq, many thanks for all your work.
I've an MXQ with red MX and Q button, and everything is fine with stable release on SD.
OpenElec says no BT module avalaible also if my device has BT, but it's not a problem.

I've a slightly unrelated question for you...How different is OpenELEC kernel from an Android Kernel? Is it possible to pack your zImage into a boot.bin for Android?

thanks again!

ilgimmy With the latest relase the kernel version used is 3.10.33. You should be able to replace Android zImage with OpenELEC zImage but I can't guarantee that it'll work with the kernel configuration we use in OpenELEC.

Tried it. Nothing happen. I did toothpick method, there was a slight delay and MXQ logo appeared. Then it went to recovery. I was then going to try the install from EXT option but the OK button on the remore would not work.

I left the SD card in, unplugged and plugged back in... the unit started as usual and went into Android.

Will try again with another SD card.


UPDATE:

Tried another SD card. Basically same result. Just went into recovery. I did realize that instead of using the OK on the remote, I use the "return" button and it goes to folder. So I went to update from EXT, there was no file to choose. (i do know there are 2 files in SD card). Went back and simply did reboot from menu option with SD card still inserted. It just booted as usual to android.

Sorry, maybe I am doing wrong but that is how I was able to test and those are my results.

borikua There have to be 5 files on SD card:

factory_update_param.aml
kernel.img
OpenELEC-Amlogic.MXQ.arm-5.0.8-bootloader.zip
recovery.img
SYSTEM

When you have these files on SD card (and second partition which is created automatically when burning the image to a SD card) you only have to flash bootloader in recovery. After that your box should hopefully be able to boot from SD card.

I think I already tried that and it didn't work for me. I will try it again when I'm back at home, just to be sure.

In the end, after some time playing around with the Android ROM I decided to get rid of it. I have installed the p8 to the NAND using the Updater app and then updated to the p16. So far working great.

Only two issues:

- I can't poweroff the device. Both the poweroff button and the poweroff option in Kodi menu seem to only suspend the box, not shuting down it completely. I don't know if this is a bug or a feature. Anyway, I would like to know if there is a way to shut it down.

- Status LED is always red.

I haven't tested the Wifi (I use ethernet), but everything else is working flawlessly. A great improvement from my old GBox Midnight.

Great work!

Wendigo You're right, there is no proper "power off" in my OpenELEC builds. This is how Codesnake implemented it for Amlogic boxes. I'm trying to change that; the problem is that power off method is implemented in bootloader and not every way to power off works with every box. I'm working on a workaround for the next release but results are so-so at best.

As for the status LED, I would need to know the GPIO pin that the LED is connected to - I don't remember what it was exactly but it was something like cat /proc/gpio and it needs to be issued in Android.

[Wendigo]

You're right, there is no proper "power off" in my OpenELEC builds. This is how Codesnake implemented it for Amlogic boxes. I'm trying to change that; the problem is that power off method is implemented in bootloader and not every way to power off works with every box. I'm working on a workaround for the next release but results are so-so at best.

As for the status LED, I would need to know the GPIO pin that the LED is connected to - I don't remember what it was exactly but it was something like cat /proc/gpio and it needs to be issued in Android.

Damn! I will see if I can manage to reflash some Android ROM and get the GPIO info. The main problem will be lack of time... v_v

[Compos]

I haven't seen my blue LED since the first time I flashed a rom to my box! I don't mind the way it works with 5.0.8 p8 though. It shows red when the box is on and shows nothing when the box is powered down.

[rev6]

I haven't seen my blue LED since the first time I flashed a rom to my box! I don't mind the way it works with 5.0.8 p8 though. It shows red when the box is on and shows nothing when the box is powered down.

Very strange. That works as normal here. Blue when on.

I keep trying newer versions > p8 but they all eventually have audio sync problems. p8 is the best version for me.

[kszaq]

It looks like the GPIO pin assigned to power LED differs from device to device in HD18Qs available on the market. To see which pin the LED is assgned to, you can issue cat /sys/kernel/debug/gpio in Android.

[ididmytime]

I'm trying to test the SD version in a HD18Q (OTT MXQ), but I'm unable to bring up recovery using the toothpick method.

I own an old GBox Midnight and I'm familiar with the toothpick method, so I'm pretty sure that I'm doing it correctly.

The SD card was prepared restoring the downloaded image using DD, and it is correctly loaded both in the PC and in the MXQ after boot.

I have just received my MXQ and it is the firsts test I do with it, so I don't know if it is a problem of lacking recovery partition or that the SD method simply doesn't work.

Has anyone tried the SD version on the HD18Q?

I have had major, MAJOR problems with OpenElec and toothpick method to get to recovery on both of my mk808's.

I am trying to revert back to OpenElec on NAND only after flashing the bootloader with little success, had to use Amlogic tool to get Android 4.4 on.

[Compos]

It looks like the GPIO pin assigned to power LED differs from device to device in HD18Qs available on the market. To see which pin the LED is assgned to, you can issue cat /sys/kernel/debug/gpio in Android.

I assume that the Android rom used for this would have to work correctly. Like I said earlier I haven't had a blue LED since my original rom and I haven't been able to find a correctly working rom since.

[kkm]

I have had major, MAJOR problems with OpenElec and toothpick method to get to recovery on both of my mk808's.

Same here, the toothpick recovery method no longer works after installing p16 on SD, but as kszaq mentioned earlier, you can rename recovery.img to kernel.img and a toothpick won't be necessary.

[borikua]

borikua There have to be 5 files on SD card:

factory_update_param.aml
kernel.img
OpenELEC-Amlogic.MXQ.arm-5.0.8-bootloader.zip
recovery.img
SYSTEM

When you have these files on SD card (and second partition which is created automatically when burning the image to a SD card) you only have to flash bootloader in recovery. After that your box should hopefully be able to boot from SD card.

kszaq I tried again to save to SD card, only 2 files are produced. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong so I used the image for the MXQ red version and this one did copy 5 files to my SD card. HD18Q file is not copying 5 files.

By the way.... I am trying to do hd18q. After reading my initial post maybe I was not specific to what device.

[kszaq]

kszaq I tried again to save to SD card, only 2 files are produced. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong so I used the image for the MXQ red version and this one did copy 5 files to my SD card. HD18Q file is not copying 5 files.

By the way.... I am trying to do hd18q. After reading my initial post maybe I was not specific to what device.

My bad, I've just noticed that the additional files are missing for the HD18Q...

I'm very sorry for that, you must've wasted much time... I'm now working on a next minor release which will be out in a few days, maybe even today if I'm lucky. I'll post an updated SD card image for HD18Q then and make sure that there are all necessary files.

[kkm]

I'm now working on a next minor release which will be out in a few days, maybe even today if I'm lucky..

Awesome! May I ask if Elonics e4000 tuner driver will be included?